Another year, another fresh set of days ahead to fill with, well, what?
More baking, obviously. Cheesecakes are a given, but I’m going to branch sideways into a few more varieties. I think I’ve mastered the New Yorker, but there’s the baseless Basque cheesecake, there’s going to be jellies to top them, mirror glazes (if I can avoid what appears to be the inevitable rubberyness that accompanies them according to the Great British Bake Off), things like that. The dried blackcurrants were a massive success, so assuming we get the fruit, more of that too.
Teaching continues unabated. Timetable has been ripped up, fed through the shredder with two others and has yet to be formally stuck back together. It’s still the best career change I could’ve made, but the stuff that happens around actually teaching kids sometimes feels overwhelming.
I’ve tracked down a lot of old drafts and works in progress from historic NaNoWriMos past, hoping that this year will be the year I finally finish a story… setting myself the challenge of writing something at least 5 times a week.
And speaking of finishing, there’s a cross stitch dragon that needs a ton of back stitch. I hate back stitch. If anyone has any recommendations for making it easier/faster, I’m all ears.
Plus the traditional run/exercise more, eat less, lose 6kg…
So that’s the plan. The year will fill up with amazing things, as years do – folk festivals, holidays, random nights at Rock City – but these are things I want to do.
There are years where you get gluts of fruit and veg from both the garden and the allotment. 2 years ago we had to share our damson harvest with our neighbours – picking from the tree filled 2 large buckets! Last year we offered to share the harvest again – we would keep 1 damson, they could have the other. The tree was not kind to us, so we hacked it back and this year looks to be a good one.
I know, everyone hates those cooking blogs where it takes ages to get to the point. But if I don’t tell you this stuff now, you’ll not read it after you’ve had the recipe, so bear with me.
Courgettes are an easy one to get rid of. Grate them, squeeze out a lot of the water, and sub them for carrots in your favourite carrot cake recipe. Ours is bullet-proof, comes from the Usbourne Family Cook Book (spot the ducks on every page). Blackcurrants used to be easy. We’d jam them, pie them, crumble them, and make blackcurrant gin/vodka (usually before making the pie or crumble as they retain a lot of their booziness after cooking). Couple of years ago we had an absolute glut and we’re still working our way through the jam. This year is already looking to be a good one so we needed a way to use them ASAP.
Cue blackcurrant cheesecake. I branded this one an experimental cheesecake as this was the first time I’d tried it, but then thinking on it it was always going to work. After all, marmalade works as a cheesecake ingredient (ginger biscuit base, stick to the classic combinations here) so why shouldn’t blackcurrant?
Oven to 180C, 23cm spring-form tin at the ready on a baking tray, quick spin round the ingredients, Clive, then back to me. You’re going to need:
175g HobNob/Oatie/Indestructodunk biscuits. Not chocolate-covered, though.
75g butter, melted.
2 x large tubs Philadelphia (the 375g ones)
1 x tub of Marscapone (~300g ish. Dunno. 1 tub is an acceptable unit of measurement here!)
175g caster sugar (this is less than my usual recipe, but then a lot of sugar is coming in from the jam)
4 eggs (another think I’ve usually got a glut of this time of year)
300ml sour cream
1 jar of home-made blackcurrant jam. The jar I used was quite large!
As a quick aside, blackcurrant jam is one of the easiest to make, the stuff has so much natural pectin (the stuff that makes jams set) there’s no need to go scrounging around for any more. The trick is to keep the stuff runny enough to spread! Here is an exceedingly thorough guide to making this most wonderful of jams – https://www.farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk/blackcurrant-jam/
Right. If you’e followed any of my cheesecakes before you know the drill. Blitz up the biccies into a nice crumb, mix into the melted butter, spread into the bottom of the spring-form tin and press it flat with either your knuckles or an old potato masher. Stick that in the oven, bake for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, get a big bowl, dump in the Philly, the marscapone, and the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Then crack in the eggs and mix them in – careful not to over-mix. Now mix through the soured cream. Finally, as the oven is coming to the end of the 10 minutes, scoop in the jar of jam and mix thoroughly again – I used jam with bits in, so there are whole blackcurrants distributed through the mix.
When it’s done, take out the base and pour over the cheesecake mix, use a spatula to clean the bowl as best you can. I’ve got this down to a fine art, much to the disappointment of the kids who are keen for the lick!. Put this into the oven, bake for 48 minutes then switch off the oven, crack the door a little, and allow the whole thing to cool for ~2-3 hours. Remove from the oven, transfer to fridge, and suffer for the rest of the night knowing it’s there but knowing you can’t cut into it until it’s properly chilled.
Blackcurrant Cheesecake. Mmmmmm.
And this is what it looks like the next morning. The outer rim of the top edge has a lovely caramelisation to it. Feedback from the usual crowd of testers (my wonderful family) rate it highly, reckon it could probably take more in the way of fruit. So the experiments continue. In the dehydrator at the moment I’ve today’s pick of blackcurrants, I’m going to dehydrate them completely and blitz them to a powder so that can get added to the Mk II of this beastie. Going to make more blackcurrant jam from the next lot of picking, that can go into an upcoming bake… Also looking at blackcurrant jelly recipes to give this a top-layer of fruity goodness.
And obviously, if blackcurrant jam works, there’s nothing to stop raspberry jam from being awesome as a cheesecake flavour. Strawberries probably not so much, unless it’s a smooth jam or you’ve chopped the strawberries up small.
Somewhere about 15, 16 years ago I walked my daughter into Reception for the first time, setting her on the path that would see her through Primary school, 2 Secondary schools, and on into Warsash Maritime Academy heading for the Merchant Navy. When we made those first steps I had no idea where she would end up, but I am so proud of where she is – and who she is.
Today I walked my youngest son to school for the last day of Year 6, his final day in Primary school. Where his journey will end, I have no idea, but you can bet I’ll be proud of who he is, wherever he ends up. Hopefully! Come September he’ll start at Secondary school. He’ll be the first one to attend this particular school, but he’s going there with the friends he’s made throughout his time at Primary school. And he’s ready for it. We’ve got whole new systems of homework setting, parents’ evenings, the endless bombardment of school contact emails to learn and understand. And a head who’s very big on pastoral care – and who pronounces it correctly, none of this past-oral business!
His primary school have been amazing. They’ve seen 4 of my 5 kids through from an assortment of entry points, but my youngest has had the full 7 year experience. And it’s been wonderful, even with lockdown and all of the pandemic weirdness thrown in.
Robin Williams once said “You have two dreams about your kids. In one, they’re thanking the Nobel commission for awarding them this honour. In the other they’re asking you life’s eternal question – do you want fries with that?” I paraphrase, he tells it far better than I do. I talked to my lad about where he wants to be on our walk this morning. He wants to earn enough money to be happy. Not too much, because he wouldn’t know what to do with it. Enough to be happy.
So. To everyone who’s finishing Primary school today, who knows where your journeys will end? Enjoy today, look forward to September where you’ll find excitement, adventure, and really wild things at Secondary school. And if it’s your last kid finishing today, this is just the end of the beginning. The end of the prologue. The main characters have been introduced, the scene has been set, the seeds of the story planted. But now, now the real fun begins.